The enormous Roman temple of Damascus measured 117,000 square meters, approximately the area occupied by the Omayyad Mosque multiplied by a factor of 8. At the time of its construction, it exceeded in scale all monumental works in Rome itself and likely in Antioch, the then Syrian metropolis. Only to the great Temple in Jerusalem (modern Haram al-Sharif), the largest sacred complex in the Near East, outstripped Damascus' temple in extension.
Damascus, Baalbek (Heliopolis), and Jerusalem therefore boasted the largest and most imposing religious buildings in ancient Syria; nothing remotely comparable in size has been erected since. The explanation is rather simple: the major cities of antiquity had a unique place of worship each, serving the spiritual needs of the inhabitants and, at the same time, providing the city with a center of pilgrimage and commerce.
The temple of Damascus was in reality two: a transitional (from profane to sacred) external one called peribolos, a place for meeting and exchanging ideas and commodities, and an inner space, the temenos, where worship and prayer took place. The Omayyad Mosque was constructed within the walls of the temenos in early 8th century CE. Inside the temenos there was a closed structure called cella, the Holy of Holies, where a representation of the deity was housed to be accessed only by the privileged few.
The main entrance of the Temple was located in the east, where a propylaeum led from Bab Jayrun through Via Sacra (today's al-Qaymariya Street) towards the Agora (or Roman Forum if you prefer). Another monumental colonnade was located west of Bab al-Barid leading to the west propylaeum, remnants of which are in a better state of preservation today than its counterpart on the east side.
We lack precise data as to when was the construction of temple started and the date of its achievement. Doubtless raising such a colossus had taken the collaborative work of quite few generations and absorbed huge resources. Most experts place the beginning in the early part of the 1st century of our era under Augustus Caesar, with the last touches belonging to the age of Septimius Severus. The Gamma (named after the Greek letter Γ) was located along the west wall of the peribolos and about one third of the north wall. It probably was a Byzantine addition (controversial) and served for the most part as a shopping center.
The ancient Temenos has totally disappeared apart from its architectural elements later recycled in the Omayyad Mosque as spolia. Remnants of the Peribolos are still scattered here and there as Dr. Dorothée Sack would try to demonstrate in her 1989 landmark study.
1. Dorothée Sack. Damaskus. Entwicklung und Struktur einer orientalisch-islamischen Stadt. von Zabern, Mainz 1989.
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